Ok so you’re starting to expand the team outside of your core Founders 😬. Exciting! Most likely your first few hires might even be close referrals or even friends or ex-colleagues you already know about. Things still feel smooth, you interact as a team closely every day, culture just seems to come naturally right now because of the how much you communicate and how small the team is.
New hires are happy- they feel fully invested and involved in the business because they’re included in decision-making at such an early stage, and they feel a deep connection to you as the Founder [⛳ flag]. They’re flexible, adaptable and will run through walls for you- embracing the opportunity to take on new tasks in a very non-linear role. Personal growth happens at lightspeed. They feel they could really start going places in this business [⛳ flag]
If you are hiring outside of close acquaintances, ex-colleagues or referrals then likely that everyone is chipping in on the interview process, with very little structure or process in place. And that’s ok, for now, but you should use your first few hires to define and refine your hiring process for the months to come.
What you need to focus on:
- Define behaviours and ‘cultural code’ with your team involved
- Map out hiring process for the months to come, from Attraction, to Onboarding
- Communication with your team on how things will change
- HR Tooling
- Benefits / Perks & Wider EVP
- Career Development Frameworks
- Org Chart Development
Why Now?
- 🖋 Define behaviours and ‘cultural code’ with your team involved
You as Founder have already established and laid down purpose, mission, values. However what is vital now is instilling these into the growing team, and turning them into tangible behaviours. You should not set these. You need to get your team to establish and agree on behaviours and code- this is huge for culture and buy-in and there’s some great workshops you can do here as a group. Reach out to me if you want to chat through these.
- 🗺 Map out hiring process for the months to come, from Attraction, to Onboarding
Chances are your early couple of hires gave you some slack for any poor onboarding if they were friends of friends for example. But later hires will not. You have to think about this right now before you start scaling too quickly. There’s a heap to unravel too. JD’s, Employer Brand, Interview Stages, Tooling, Feedback, Interviewers, Decision Making, Salary levels…And then there’s the onboarding, which has to be super slick. I can walk you through this step by step - reach out if you want to discuss.
- 🗣 Communication with your team on how things will change
Ok, so I mentioned a [⛳ flag] above when I mentioned feeling close to the Founder. I promise you this will change. There’s no way it cant. As you grow, from 10 to 30, to 50 and beyond those people who start close will mostly feel more and more distant from you. They will start to feel strange about it, despondent at times. You can get on the front foot here, by talking to the current team and managing expectations about how things will change for the business as you grow. Plant the seed now and communicate it. Get everyone prepared and it will pay off long term.
- 🛠 HR Tooling
Yes it’s early days, but before you know it these new employees will be booking holidays. You’ll need to track days off, and hold information about next of kin etc. You should get yourself set up with an HRIS system now.
- 🎁 Benefits / Perks & Wider EVP
If you’re going to start hiring, you need to think about your offering to candidates. You as Founder might not care about what perks are available to you, but the people you employ do. You might also be the most passionate person in the world about your company’s mission, but I promise you that future employees wont be; you can’t expect them to be either. The argument of “They should be begging to work here” doesn’t fly anymore. People care more about how they are looked after. And you need to get on the front foot now, because the companies you are competing with most likely have deeper pockets for salaries, so your story, EVP and benefits are key. This is a big topic, but again, I can help you break it down and build it out piece by piece. Feel free to reach out
- 👨🎓 Career Development Frameworks
Ok so the other [⛳ flag] that I mentioned above, and this can be a real headache if you don’t try to think ahead in enough time. Your first 10-20 hires will learn, and develop at lightning pace. You’ll seem them as superstars, and they’ll no doubt be operating way above and beyond their ‘job description’, to the point where you feel the need to promote quickly. Quicker than you usually would. At this point, expectations are set- they’ll want to continue this path and will be looking ahead to another in 6 months. When you get further down the line and hit 50+ people I promise this will start becoming a real issue. So jump on it now. Establish some development / progression frameworks for your early team, even if they are simplistic. Manage expectations, and keep them grounded. Don’t take this lightly.